Citizens of What we Were
by alifestylechoice
Summary: Every moment with her now was as painful as it was precious. Kakasaku, Kakashi / Sakura, gen, angst.


**Title:** Citizens of What we Were**  
Author:** alifestylechoice   
**Fandom:** Naruto (Kakashi/Sakura, mostly gen)   
**Rating:** PG (Angst-ish.)  
**Words:** 994  
**Summary:** Every moment with her now was as painful as it was precious.

_A/N: I've been in the middle of writing a multi-part for some time now. The word challenge came up over at the Kakasaku LiveJournal community, and part of it actually kind of fit. I ended up not using this part, so I fixed it up a little, and here we are! A bit angsty, but you guys can take it, right? Good luck to the rest of the word challenge participants, and please go vote if you get a chance! A lot of talented authors up in there. :DDD_

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**Citizens of What we Were**

They stood off along the shoreline, the smell of the salt heavy in the air. Her hair had gotten longer since last he'd seen her—he supposed that many things like this would change after the passing of nearly eight years. The dullness of her eyes was striking.

"They want me to take you in, you know," she said finally. Her voice carried sadness, laced with curiosity. Maybe she was sizing him up as well. He didn't have her anymore to heal his scars; since his childhood, he had excelled at acquiring them.

"I know," he said calmly, like they were talking about the news, or the weather, or the ocean. They both wished they were together, here, in a different moment, when they did talk about those things. "But, you're alone."

She nodded. "I wanted to see you." He didn't want to see her cry. "It's getting worse. The fighting."

His shoulders tensed. "I know," he repeated. "Mist's forces are regrouping, but Cloud is heading out, going in from the East. The fighting won't stop." He looked out into the sun. It was difficult for him to look at her, looking at him. Like _that_. "Danzo wants to win this war. He takes credit for accomplishments that aren't his own; he turns a blind eye when things don't go as planned. His knows exactly what he's doing and it's not in Konoha's interests."

"I know," Sakura echoed, voice hollow. "You're his greatest threat."

"He took care of that quite nicely," he said with bitterness. He supposed that he was allowed, when everything he loved and protected and card for was taken away from him; Sakura didn't blame him. What he had now amounted to the clothes on his back and the very beach they stood upon.

"Kakashi," she began. Her voice was so tired. "I need you."

He smiled softly. "That can't happen. Danzo made me out to be a traitor; I'm sure no one will be pleased to know you've been in cahoots with a criminal."

She scoffed, shook her head. "No one thinks that. No one that matters."

He took a step back, shifted his weight. She was still so beautiful. "What do _you_ think?"

She looked at him, as if taken by surprise. Every moment with her now was as painful as it was precious. She walked towards him, cold sea water washing over her sandals. When she was a bit closer, he let her take his hand in hers.

"I think that I've always held a lot of hope for the future," she said. She directed her attention to the ocean—the sun accosted her eyes. He assumed that was why tears appeared in her eyes. "I hoped that this war would end, and I hoped that I wouldn't lose any more of my friends. I hoped I could wake up and not have to think about all I've lost. I have been hoping for so long that I think of it like a disease. It's infected me. I wasted so much time hoping."

She laughed a little. She was uncomfortable. "Tsunade's gone. Naruto loves me, but Konoha needs him more than me. We kept hoping that you would come back. We—we miss you so much."

He smiled softly, turning to her. His breath was taken away by an embrace that both lifted him from the darkness of his past years in exile and filled him with unbearable grief that he would carry along with the weight of all his fallen comrades. He let his arms fall around her shoulders to hold her. She was the strongest woman he'd ever met.

"I miss you, too, Sakura." He knew she needed to leave—he would never compromise her safety for his own interests.

But, for the second it took to breathe her in again, he felt it was a risk worth taking.

"I can't tell you what to do," she whispered to the waves. He thought he heard a pang of regret in her voice, but he didn't have much time to think about it as she let go of him, taking a few steps back. "We were born at the wrong time. We live in the wrong place, in the wrong world."

He nodded. "Perhaps we'll meet again. In a different life."

They regarded each other one last time. They held each other's gaze and they saw the wedding they had always talked about, the family they had always dreamed about having, and their future they had planned out together, that they had told each other, speaking into the dark of the early morning afters. For a moment, he inhaled, and under the sea salt he smelled the scent of her hair that roused him in those mornings he'd press his lips into her shoulder, memorizing the scars on her arm and the hairs at the nape of her neck.

Before turning away, Sakura reached up and touched her shoulder, the pads of her fingers brushing her upper arm. She hesitated, the weight of their tension simultaneously repelling and pulling them together again, like the tide.

In the end, she broke away, and he knew it would be the last time he'd ever see her. He knew she would return to Konoha, her allegiance strong since the day she entered the academy. She wouldn't tell a soul that they'd met again, because she knew that some secrets are only told to one's own heart. If she ended up marrying Naruto, she might let him know one day, when the sound of their old teacher's name wasn't like pouring salt into a wound.

He imagined she would have a good life without him, and that in itself comforted him. It comforted him to know that her bitterness was already starting to wash away, like the sand beneath his feet. He watched her leave, then turned his attention to the horizon.

He waited for his new life to begin.

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_-fin-_

_Thank you for reading--please review if you have the time!_


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